Life on board Yacht Vivi
Skipper – Maurice Weddell, Crew – Natalie Flageul, Peter Weddell, Grey Warne and John Denton
Day One
Departed from Las Palmas marina at 11.50, five minutes before the start of the cruising division we switched off the engine and pulled up the main and front sails.
At 13.00 the maroon was blasted and we were off...
Started well with good winds carrying us with the rest of the fleet. One of the crew members had a bout of sea sickness as the boat begun it course. First night shift of the rally saw clear skies and enabled us to do a bit of planet spotting with Venus and Jupiter out on show.
Day Two – Day Seven
Somewhere between Gran Canaria and Cape Verde islands, heading south/south west with nice sunshine with a little cloud. We lost sight of most other boats within the first couple of days and managed to cover circa 1000 miles in the first full week, after getting a system in place for night shifts, cooking and finding our sea legs. The rolling waves only seem to appear when we are in the middle of cooking dinner or we are eating meaning its all hands on making sure nothing slips out of place or is lost.
The food has been well stocked up and so have had lovely dinners and lunches across the week with the fresh meat slowly starting to disappear towards the end of the week. John has been giving a lot of TLC to the basil plant in a bid to win the competition of the best kept plant upon arrival in St Lucia. John created a hanging basket out of an old water bottle which now hangs from the hatch in the main living compartment.
Day Eight – Ten
With the second week upon us, the sunshine and winds were looking good. We started to dare think about our ETA, to achieve the rally within 21 days we know we needed to achieve an average of about 150 miles a day. We started to use the VHF radio to contact other boats in the vicinity and see how they were finding the trip and how much progress they had made. We started to spot flying fish this week and have seen an abundance of them flying out of the water across the ocean. At night they appear to be attracted to the navigational lights and occasionally we can hear them flying into the boat.
After spotting the flying fish we decided there must be some predatory fish chasing them for them to be fleeting away and therefore thought it would be a good idea to start fishing... Peter set up his fishing rod (which he bought from Las Palmas) and sent a line out into the sea. The first day of this we didn’t see a sign of any life or interest from a fish in taking the bait. This didn’t stop us and the next day we tried again, Peter set the rod up about midday and then went down below to make lunch for the rest of the crew. Halfway through making sandwiches the line started to whizz out! Panic struck and we all went to assist. However, the click of the wrong button sent the rod in a mad frenzy and knotted up the line on the wheel. It was stuck. With the fish still on the end of the line, Peter pulled on his rope gloves and started to pull the fish towards the boat. With the heavy fish putting up a fight and the speed of the boat the fish had won and managed to escape from the bait. It’s still a little sore point so we haven’t tried to fish again just yet.
Monday evening and we are just preparing to settle down and get things ready for dinner, Grey is on the helm and shouts to the rest of the crew that a school of dolphins are fast approaching. We all hurried to the bow of the boat to where around a school of 10 dolphins were racing along side the boat and jumping through the breaking waves. This was a great moment and makes you realise that although you can’t see other boats for days you are not alone.
After polishing off a nice bottle of win on Monday evening Natalie decided to keep the bottle to write a note in and throw over board. Tuesday afternoon we wrote out a note on waterproof paper, giving our coordinates and an e-mail address to respond to if found and then threw it overboard. There were bets on the bottle making it to St Lucia before us but needless to say we went in opposite directions. John has estimated it taking around 140 days for the bottle to make it to the Caribbean. Only time will tell if it does make it ashore and if anyone picks it up to find the note.
Until our next update,
Love all the Skipper and all the crew on board Vivi x